60 SEA FISHERIES 



or by automobile, all over a region lying between New- 

 castle and the north of Jutland ; rich, fertile plains would 

 stretch from Hull to Denmark, from Yarmouth to Ham- 

 burg, from London to Rotterdam, and there would no 

 longer be any question of a Channel tunnel. 



The Elbe, the Weser, the Ems, the Rhine, the Meuse 

 and the Escaut and the Thames would water this enor- 

 mous plain, which would be dominated by a single 

 plateau, 200 feet in height, 300 miles long, and 36 miles 

 wide the Dogger. This is not an idle vision ; it is a 

 picture of what once existed. The sides of the Dogger 

 hills formerly sheltered mammoths and rhinoceros, and 

 in this very place primitive man may once have hunted 

 his prey with his weapons of worked flint. 



Let us imagine a section of the floor of the sea from 

 the Orkneys to Heligoland. The ground gradually sinks 

 to a depth of 80 fathoms, then rises to 50 fathoms, and 

 presently to 40. The Dogger Bank, which adjoins it, 

 is only 15 fathoms below the surface ; its south-eastern 

 slope sinks to 23 fathoms, and is joined by a submarine 

 beach to the island of Heligoland, in some 20 fathoms of 

 water. Now take a second section, perpendicular to the 

 first, lying between Hull and the centre of the Skagerack. 

 The bottom descends in a gentle slope to a depth of 35 

 fathoms, climbs the south-western flank of the Dogger, 

 which brings it to within 40 feet of the surface of the sea, 

 and continues in the form of a tableland 20 fathoms deep 

 before joining the Skagerack. I should mention that this 

 strait, which is at least 250 fathoms deep, is the southern 

 portion of the great Scandinavian depression, called the 

 " Norwegian dike," by the naturalist-hydrographers of 

 the " Permanent International Council for the Explora- 

 tion of the Sea." The Norwegian dike runs all along 

 the Norwegian coast. A third line, parallel to the second, 



